Has Bihar been betrayed?

Bihar is indeed the "heart of India", as Sir John Houlton said, but ironically the Raghuram Rajan Committee considers it the second-most backward, the poorest and among "the least developed states" in India. At a time when Bihar's unique development model has dimmed Gujarat's much-hyped model of spurious growth, the Committee not only rejects Bihar's demand for special status but also dismisses the fact that in independent India the state has suffered from the debilitating historical disadvantages of permanent settlement, de-industrialisation, exploitation of resources and cheap Bihari labour.

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